HighPoint RocketRAID 1740 and RocketRAID 2300 RAID Controllers Review

Introduction:

To many people, HighPoint is a familiar name, appearing as the ATA controller on host adapters and also integrated into motherboard designs during the 1990s. HighPoint was the first to bring PATA RAID and SATA RAID to workstations and entry-level servers, bringing high performance storage solutions to end users and small-to-medium businesses at an aggrressively competitive price point. HighPoint maintains this ethos today, offering a wide range of RAID controllers in PCI, PCI-X, and PCI-E forms to cater for all applications of high capacity storage.

In this review, I will be taking a look at the RocketRAID 1740 (PCI) and RocketRAID 2300 (PCI-E) RAID controllers. The 1740 is at the top end of HighPoint's PCI series, and the 2300 is its entry-level PCI-E card.

Closer Look:

Both RAID controller cards come in a retail box with a clear picture of the card itself and a breakdown of the features and specs.

Firstly, here is what the RocketRAID 1740 packaging looks like.

And here is the packaging of the RocketRAID 2300.

Laying the cards side by side, you can see that the 2300 (left) is a fair bit shorter than the 1740 (right).